Termites can help predict the impact of climate change

As it turns out termites, those pesky critters that can destroy your families home may actually help predict the ecological changes shaped by climate change. According to the study by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology termites are careful builders that locate their mounds in areas with the right balance of moisture and drainage and this intuitive understanding of geology and hydrology can help explain how a local ecosystem might evolve. “By understanding the patterns of the vegetation and termite mounds over different moisture zones, we can project how the landscape might change with climate change,” explains co-author Greg Asner.